Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Kemp, for that commendation. The evidence that I will be sharing demonstrates, in my view quite clearly, that Work Choices is working. Labor and the unions made two simple claims about Work Choices prior to its introduction. The first was that jobs would be slashed and the second was that wages would be cut. The exact opposite has occurred. It is time, in my view, for both the Labor Party and the union movement to admit their mistake and apologise. Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6 per cent in October this year—its lowest level for 30 years. Unemployment has fallen by over 240,000 since the Howard government was elected in 1996. Australia now has a record high of 10,287,400 in work, and of these three-quarters or 7.3 million are full time. So since the Howard government came to office in March 1996 well over 1.9 million jobs have been created and towards 200,000 more jobs have been created since Work Choices started in March this year. In Tasmania the number of full-time jobs has grown from 151,200 in March this year, using the trend figures, to 154,100 last month, while the Tasmanian unemployment rate in trend terms has dropped from 6.5 per cent to 6.4 per cent.

Now, what about real wages? We have talked about jobs and unemployment—what about real wages? Real wages have actually increased 16.5 per cent since 1996, and last month, interestingly, against the predictions of the union movement and the Labor Party, the Australian Fair Pay Commission increased the federal minimum wage by $27 a week. In terms of real wages, it was a 16.5 per cent increase, compared to a minus 0.2 per cent fall under the previous Labor government, when they had 13 years of government. It was 0.2 per cent down.